


a hazy shade of winter

by volchitza



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 06:38:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8239591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volchitza/pseuds/volchitza
Summary: Nineteen years later, all is not quite well. When Albus and Scorpius become close friends at Hogwarts, Draco sends a letter to the Potters, with an invitation.





	

“ _It is unclear what the Minister’s next move is going to be, while he keeps assuring that the Treasury isn’t concerned by the rumors of a cris-_ "

Arthur waves his wand minimally and the radio’s creaky voice magically stops announcing the news, protesting stubbornly the importance of staying informed before being entirely shut up by another wave of Arthur’s wand.

“I was listening to that, dad,” protests Ginny from her position on the sofa next to her mum.

“It upsets Molly,” he replies in a tired voice.

Ginny takes a deep breath; with a heavy heart, she searches her mum’s rigid face for a sign of a reaction, wondering if she is upset by anything much anymore, if the words reach her, if she’s aware of who’s near her or what the radio is announcing. Not even her beloved Celestina Warbeck songs seem to elicit a response from her, these days, except on a few occasions.

“Yes, of course”, she says bleakly, caressing her mum’s hand in hers.

Arthur turns to her, starting the same conversation he always starts, thrice weekly, when he feels the silence has become too much of a burden; questions and answers unchanging, rehearsed to the point Ginny almost doesn’t hear herself replying:

"How’s Harry?” he asks in a cheerful tone.

"Working, tired, but we’re good."

"That’s good. Is Lily giving you trouble? You know you can always bring her here, we like having our grandchildren around.”

"I know, dad, that’s nice. I’ll bring her if I need to."

"Good, good. Bill wrote the other day, he says…"

“Dear!” Molly says, suddenly interrupting their polite exchange. Her voice, unclear and heard for the first time in days, startles them. “Are Fabian and Gideon coming to dinner? I haven’t made anything, I’m so late!”

Ginny turns to her, squeezing her hand.

“No, mum, they’re away, remember? They’re not here”, she reassures her, hiding her distress behind a sweet voice. “It’s okay, you’re not late." Her mum’s eyes seem to dim, then, and she slowly goes back to her previous unresponsiveness. Ginny keeps stroking the back of her mum’s hand soothingly. “You’re not late, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Her father looks shattered.

 

“Thank you, Ginny”, he says later, accompanying her to the door. “I never know what to do on such occasions. Ron tried to tell her they’re dead, once, and she was in such low spirits afterwards —"

“I know, dad, it’s okay."

“It is so sad, seeing her like this. She used to be the life of this house."

He sounds so defeated, so tired, so beyond comfort. His shoulders are hunched forward under some weight - age, sadness, worry. And yet.

She holds him for a short moment. “Take care, dad."

 

Walking out of the Burrow, Ginny stops on the garden path and inhales deeply. She wonders when, exactly, leaving her childhood home has become more of a relief than entering it.

 

The mornings are awfully quiet without Albus. She misses him, perhaps more than she did James. She is aware of the fact that she isn’t supposed to think like  _ that _ , - she did silently reproach this very fault to her own mum for so many years, a bitter seed in the bottom of her stomach sprouting every time she saw signs of inequality of love - but James, forever brilliant, never quite showed affection like her sensitive little Al: his small, thin arms draping around her waist in the morning while she’d be standing in the kitchen making breakfast, his raven-dark hair covering his eyes; sometimes he’d suggest more spice in his food, but mostly he’d be too sleepy to talk until she’d be almost finished.

“Good morning, mum,” he’d say, and she’d kiss his cheek. She can still hear the words, his precious, drowsy voice, and she misses the light touch of his arms holding her more than anything.  _ It has just been little over a month _ , she tells herself.

“Good morning, Al,” she mutters to the empty room.

But now he spends his mornings at Hogwarts, making quick friends with Scorpius Malfoy  _ of all people _ . She wonders how the Slytherin dormitory he wakes up in looks - she’s never actually been, of course, but the stories she heard were absolutely dreadful, painting it as a dark, cold and, perhaps most terribly,  _ humid _ place. Besides, Hogwarts kitchens never made the food he likes, she thinks with a pang in the heart, and for some reason that is what makes her saddest of all.

A large, imposing owl she has never seen before taps respectfully on the window, thrice. It’s holding a letter in its beak, unlike most of the correspondence coming from James or Albus, who rather prefer to tie their parchment to the bird’s foot.

She opens the window to let the owl in, then she takes the letter; the owl watches her inspecting it before flying to the birdhouse next to the window to rest and feed.

The words are written prettily in dark sepia ink on a heavy, cream-coloured parchment marked by the Malfoy family crest and the words “Sanctimonia vincet semper”. It has a vague smell of ink, and the residue of a protection spell against rain.

The letter is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Potter, by Draco Malfoy. It is nicely worded, and not too long: an invitation for the whole family to spend the impending Christmas at Malfoy Manor, since Scorpius and Albus have become such close friends. It would be a wonderful gift for the boys, he argues, and for themselves as well - it is, after all, almost the last year they have left to cherish them as children before they start growing up. There is plenty of space for them to stay, and the grounds look especially beautiful that time of the year, when snow falls; the kids could run wherever they want, he promises.

He ends the letter by wishing them a good day, clearly intending to put the least pressure on them.

It does sting more than a little that Draco Malfoy, the last person she’d think of, would be more of a considerate parent than she is, and willing to set aside his own past problems for the happiness of his child, when she hadn’t even thought of the possibility - though she had spent the most of her Hogwarts holidays with friends and family.

She considers it; she has seen Malfoy briefly on the first day of September, for the first time since the end of the war. She has read about him in the papers, of course, mostly her own. First, the news had focused on his attempt at public redemption, successful though still met with many a skeptical remark, then, later, on his quick divorce two years prior. Finance columns periodically talk about him moderately well. She knows enough about the matter from Bill to understand he is actually better than “moderately” good at his job, but she knows there is not much he can do to erase the image of his father behind bars at Azkaban and his ties with the former Dark Lord in the public eye.

Ginny looks out of the window: the sun still isn’t up; the mornings are getting darker and the days shorter. She wonders if Albus is awake, and what he sees. He would be ecstatic, she knows that much. Of course, there is the matter of their family - rejecting Christmas with them to be at Malfoy Manor sounds ridiculous to her own ears as well, but asking Malfoy to have them over if only for lunch on the twenty-fifth of December sounds like even more of a stretch. They could, maybe, spend the holiday at Malfoy Manor and then Christmas Day at the Burrow; but then, what would the point have been, if the boys can’t be together on their favourite day of the year?

Her thoughts run over one another, as she tries to consider all the variables and possibilities.

“Charlie is never home, after all,” she says to herself under her breath. And it’s not like Bill and Fleur always come to the Burrow either - she ought to know, with all the fuss James makes when Dominique is going to be there.

She wonders, with an amused grin, if Malfoy does crackers and paper crowns.

_ Shit, _ she thinks,  _ I’m going to have to buy him a present. _

When she looks again, the brown owl is gone.

 

Ginny hears the front door open and close; her shoulders tense imperceptibly; moments later, her husband comes into the living room to greet her with a quick kiss.

“I was expecting you through the fireplace,” she comments, placing her work beside her on the armchair.

“Oh, I took the tube home with Hermione,” he says, undoing his cravat. “You know how we do that sometimes.”

“I do,” she cuts in, “and I still think it is highly impractical.”

“Well, besides that, we had much to discuss; her department is overrun with owls, and, frankly, an unmanageable amount of Howlers, most of which from anti-Muggle people complaining that Muggle-borns and Half-Bloods are ruining wizarding society, that sort of talk. It’s becoming a safety issue, we have to track down the sender of every threatening or violent letter… You can imagine what the atmosphere is like, with the elections coming up in spring.”

“I can imagine how it must  _ sound _ ,” she jokes, which elicits a fraction of a smile from Harry. “You think I should call her through the Floo Network?”

“Perhaps tomorrow. She seemed very tired to me.” After a few moments of silence, he adds, in an effort to sound appreciative: “Lovely idea, though.”

Ginny nods, lips pursed, going back to her work; Harry, on the sofa, picks up the  _ Prophet _ .

Some time later, she says: “By the way,” in the most neutral conversational tone. “You just cannot imagine who wrote today.”

 

“Anyone coming down for breakfast?” Ginny half-shouts, placing eggs in everyone’s plate.

There’s no answer; she points her wand to the dirty pans and flicks it towards the sink, where the water starts running, sponges fly up to meet the pans and start cleaning them.

Ginny goes upstairs, then follows the sound of laughter coming from Lily’s room, where she finds Harry and their daughter caught in a very serious play fight on her bed, in a tangle of dark, hairy limbs and Lily’s thin legs and arms.

Lily wins, naturally, by tickling; Harry laughs and plays dead, tongue theatrically displayed out of his mouth, eyes firmly shut though his chest is heaving. Lily, eyes gleaming, tickles him back to life, and he plunges forward to grab her at the waist and tickle her ruthlessly, until her legs are kicking up in the air and she declares herself vanquished. When she sits up, her long hair is falling out of its tie, messy, creating a red-gold halo around her head in the first morning light. She is utterly lovely, Ginny thinks, standing at the door.

“Good morning,” she says, announcing her presence. Harry’s head snaps towards her; he gives her a radiant, partly apologetic smile.

“Morning, love. So sorry for making us late to breakfast. This little bean wasn’t feeling like waking up today.”

Lily gets up and runs past her mother - “Hi, mum” - to the stairs, shouting “I’m not late! I’m first!”

Harry and Ginny exchange a knowing, amused look, then Harry gets up and kisses her against the doorframe. She’s surprised; this is not the sort of thing that happens very often, or at all, lately. Her hands go hesitantly to his sides, over his white t-shirt, still warm from the bed; she leans into the kiss, feeling fuzzy, savouring the sensation of her husband’s hands on her hips.

“Dad? Mummy? I’m  _ hungry _ !” comes Lily’s shout from the kitchen.

They stop kissing; Ginny’s lips tingle, looking into Harry’s eyes, with his long and dark lashes; his hair is standing on his forehead, revealing his faded, pinkish scar.

“Right,” he says, taking his hands off Ginny’s hips and stepping back, out of her touch, his Adam’s apple quickly bobbing up and down. She feels the loss of him, a little colder, a little emptier.

By the time they sit at the table, it’s almost as if it didn’t happen at all.

 

“We received a letter from Hogwarts,” Ginny announces, passing it to Harry over the juice pitcher. Lily follows it with big, ardent eyes, curious and eager and envious.

“What did James do?” asks Harry, a strain in his voice.

“Surprisingly, nothing - that they know of, I guess. No, it’s from the new Charms professor, apparently the old one had to be committed to St. Mungo’s after some experiment he’d made trying to invent a new spell. Well, anyway, this new professor wants to replace the textbook for the First Year, so we should buy this other book he likes better.”

Harry gulps down his toast. “You don’t sound particularly happy about it.”

Ginny waves her hand in the air. “It’s just - it’s unethical, sort of. Teaches them the wrong idea about the value of money.”

“Unethical?” he repeats, mockingly. “It’s just a book, Ginny.”

“The  _ Standard _ was a perfectly good book, valuable, and there’s kids whose families cannot afford to spend  _ four Galleons _ on a new,  _ fancy _ book.”

“Albus is not one of those kids,” Harry says, a defensive note in his voice.

Ginny looks down at the eggs in her plate, her stomach clenching like a fist. “I know he’s not, but there  _ still _ are people who struggle, especially right now, with the crisis…” She bites her tongue; her voice, she realises, is far too argumentative for a breakfast discussion with their daughter at the table.

Ginny hates this - the resentment, the bitterness, the sudden anger taking hold of her, taking over everything she should love, every blameless detail, from the way he holds his utensils to his mismatched socks.

She sighs, picking up her fork again.

“I’ll go this morning, after I’ve taken Lily to my parents’.”

Lily smiles. “Is Hugo going to be there?” she asks, suddenly excited.

“We can ask uncle Ron, dear.”

“Neville says hi, did you see?” he asks, holding up the post scriptum, and Ginny can’t help resenting his obliviousness, too.

 

The clouds over Diagon Alley cast the brown-bricked street in a dull, grey light.

It’s a familiar scene, a multi-coloured crowd of traditional pointed hats, along with fashionable berets, turbans and veiled pillbox hats much like Ginny’s own.

“Beautiful lady, a charm for good luck and wealth? Three Sickles for you!”, an old woman vendor calls to her from a stall; another peddler, next to TerrorTours, offers to look into her future through a crystal ball or a palm reading and let her know the names of her enemies.

She walks past Quality Quidditch Supplies with a brief, longing look; on the wall behind the counter, there are two pictures of her - younger, happier, flying on her old Air Wave Gold alongside Gwenog Jones, and in formation with the Harpies, grinning, their green and gold uniforms bright against a cloudy sky.  _ Another life _ , she thinks, and heads into the bookshop.

Inside Flourish and Blotts is a suffocating chaos: customers raising their voices, piles of books almost as tall as the room threatening to topple down, and other books whizzing overhead to and from different shelves.

Overwhelmed, Ginny sneaks into the unremarkably empty Divination section to find solace on her way towards the Charms textbooks corner; the small room is unattractive, out of sight and dark, the candles floating about without a flame.

Despite the pungent smell of mould, she takes a deep breath, resting her back against a bookcase. With a flick of her wand, she lights one of the candles, revealing thousands of gilded specks of dust hanging in the air.

She takes a step towards a bookstand, where a heavy tome ominously lies open on a page depicting seven figures in white, which despite being faceless still seem to stare at Ginny; a cold shiver pricks at the nape of her neck and runs down her spine, like the touch of a phantom fingertip.

“Having a bad day?”

She looks up, startled.

“I thought I recognised you. Didn’t take you for one to give much credit to death omens,” Malfoy says, gesturing towards the book in front of her.

“You’re right, I don’t,” she says, stepping away from it. “Are you also here for the Charms textbook?”

“Yes, I am. I’d taken the morning off work, but it rather looks like it’s going to take longer, isn’t it?”

Ginny has the fleeting, ridiculous impression that, beneath his deep-voiced collected exterior, he looks  _ nervous; _ then a booming voice interrupts them, drowning out all other noise in the shop.

“Copies of  _ The XXI Century Spellcaster _ are currently out of stock,” it announces, “interested customers are invited to please sign a waiting list at the door and they will be contacted within the day. Thank you.”

She looks at Malfoy, standing in the archway to the Divination section, the soft light of the candle illuminating his high-necked black velvet robe, his sharp profile and white-blond hair; she smiles politely, then asks, “Fancy a walk?”

 

The air hangs heavy between them, damp and growing colder; the clouds seem to lay like a blanket on top of the buildings, looming too close.

They share a civil conversation on the way, restrained pleasantries like a waltz around each other to look beneath the good-mannered surface; to catch whatever similarities remained with the people they left behind, the people they shed like a snake skin in the aftermath of the war. She looks for his arrogance, but she seems to glimpse only a coldness, in the set of his shoulders, the slow bird-like turn of his head when he talks to her. Ginny’s eyes follow their reflected image in one shop window after another, their synchronized step, flashes of black and green from one glass surface to the next, coming up again and again in slight variations, like a leitmotiv in a song.

 

They sit at a table on the second floor of a restaurant, newly opened at the end corner of Memorial Alley; through the large window, stained with glass blackwork, she observes the glistening cobblestone street, and the park on the other side of the road.

Ginny likes the sound of the raindrops falling against the window pane, a gentle tap-tap at first which built to a steadfast rhythm, like a watery drum roll; she likes the greyish light washing over them, tingeing their hands resting on the tablecloth.

There is a feeling, like a thread, that connects the nape of her neck to her lips to the pit of her stomach, tingling, poking at her; she tells herself it’s the awkwardness, opening a hole in her belly, gaping like a hungry mouth, like fear - hissing, whispering that there is something naked in her of which his eyes seem to guess the shape.

She and her family will be accepting his kind offer, she says, after the waiter has come with their order, trying to smother the hissing feeling with neutral, detached words; but her voice grows softer when she tells him, “That part you wrote about them growing so fast - I found that to be very true.”

There’s a mellow light in his eyes, then, a sympathy of feeling which makes speech flood out of her openly. “With James, my eldest, it was like that. The boy who came to us in the summer after his first year wasn’t the same who’d left. Of course I expected him to change, but not being there to see it…” She pauses, hiding her emotion behind a glass of Gillywater.

A sadness passes over Malfoy’s face like a cloud - she imagines, then, the particular pain of having to leave your child with your divorced spouse, the torture of the moments you lose and will never know again.

“And this is not going to cause you any trouble? I mean, with your parents,” she asks, bringing her fork to her mouth.

He looks mystified, for a second, before erupting in a brief laugh.

“My parents are, as they’ve been for the better part of two decades, in Scotland. I assure you, my father is already quite disappointed in me for how I raised Scorpius.”

He talks in a light tone, as if he were comfortable with the bitterness which deepens the lines on his face, turning the corners of his mouth downwards, knitting his brow, but he falters.

“Scorpius is… too loving.” His eyes look hazy, and sweet; his face slowly relaxes into a softness, as he seems to look for the words, plucking the very best ones like plums from a tree, the ripe ones, sugary as a candy. “He has a wonder for the world, and all its creatures - a goodness, in him. A kind heart. That is something my father will never understand.”

Her heart beats faster; she feels the sharp anger, and the sadness in his last words, in his cloudy grey eyes looking into hers; there is a loneliness in being disappointed by a parent, settling in one’s heart like a black weight, never quite seeming to get lighter; she breathes in, feeling it like a stone in her chest. It compels her to speak again.

“Albus told me how frightened he was after being sorted into Slytherin - the first in his family, you know. He said that Scorpius sat beside him and they became friends on that first night.” He smiles; there’s thin lines forming around his eyes. “I thought that was very sweet.”

They eat in silence for a while, seeming to wordlessly adjust to one another.

“Will your whole family be coming, then?” he asks.

Ginny raises her eyebrows, shaking her head. “Oh, no. James will be staying with my parents, so he's less trouble to you and, frankly, to me - us - as well. He's very eager to see his cousin, you see.”

He nods; then something changes on his face, and she notices his right hand tapping nervously on the table, the sound made by his tight-clipped nails and long, tapering fingers low beneath the drum of the rain.

“I want to say - thank you for accepting. I understand that, well, given our past, it might not have been an easy decision, and I would’ve understood if you’d chosen differently; expected it, even.”

She puts down her fork, and instead focuses on smoothing down a wrinkle in the tablecloth.

“I can’t say I wasn’t surprised, at first,” she begins, her eyes cast down to the movement of her own fingers, tracing lines as slow as her words, “but then I think every one of us has moved on from the past, haven’t we? One way or another. It’s been so long. We’ve all changed.”

He thinks he sees her shrug, just barely. Her lashes cast a pretty shadow on her cheeks, so fair and dotted with light brown freckles, all over her skin: there’s some on the shell of her ears, too, and, faintly, on her lips; even on her hands. She’s drawing lines on the cloth, leaving a small indentation on the fabric with her fingernail, then going back to trace it again.

He blinks twice, then closes his mouth.

“Yes,” he replies, finally, “yes, we all did.”

She looks up again, meeting his eyes. His breathing has slowed down, deepening.

There comes the buzzing feeling again, the nape of her neck and her lips and the pit of her stomach all open like a bloodless wound, and it’s in him, too, the distinct sensation of being plunged into life; like being thrown into a swimming pool; like flying high above the playing field, above the treetops, until you’re a little short of breath, and so alive for it.

“Was everything to your liking? Would you like a dessert?”

Ginny swallows, looking at the waiter who’d approached their table.

“Everything was perfect, thank you. No dessert for me.”

Malfoy refuses a dessert as well; the waiter waves his wand to Teleport their plates and leaves.

“Shall we…” she says, motioning to the stairs.

“Yes,” he answers, half in a daze.

 

At the door, a tall man in a purple velvet suit stops them. He has a deep, reassuring voice, and he keeps his hands folded.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you get out. We are in the middle of an emergency situation.”

Malfoy raises an eyebrow. “And you are?”

“An officer of the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, sir. Nobody is allowed on the streets.”

Ginny holds out her hand to stop Malfoy from further protesting; the hairs on the nape of her neck stand out, a chill spreading through her.

“What kind of emergency situation, officer?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss, ma’am. Do not worry, you are safe in here.”

“In here? I’m going  _ home _ .”

“All forms of magical transport are forbidden until the emergency subsides, ma’am.”

Ginny almost takes a step back; her brother Percy is Head of the Department of Magical Transportation: she knows when all magical travel is forbidden in an area, the Auror Office is working to track down an escaping witch or wizard. She looks at the officer in front of her, the gentle but firm lines on his face.

“We’ll be returning to our table, then,” she hears Malfoy’s voice next to her, deadpan; she spots, then, on the door behind the Auror, the faint shimmering of a Protection spell.

 

“Do you think it’s another attack?” he asks, sitting at the table.

Ginny looks out of the window; it’s only grey rain now, and the cobblestone floor, and nobody on the street.

“Of course it’s another attack,” she whispers; in the empty room, she hears him inhale. “They’re following every Travelling Spell. I think we’re going to stay here until they find whoever they’re looking for.”

“I think…  _ if _ this was a terrorist attack,” he says, sounding almost vulnerable, “they were probably targeting Gringotts. We have been given, uh, special instructions by the Ministry just the other week. In case of emergency.”

She turns. He looks pale, weary, his traits washed out by the low afternoon light; his lips are a tight line.

“People come to ask about the economic crisis every day, you see, with more or less defeat, and anger. I guess this time…” His voice seems to die in his throat.

“It’s the elections coming up,” she offers, but he shakes his head.

“It’s the bill for the rights of the House Elves. With so many of them getting freed, the economy is collapsing, the taxes are rising, and the ministerial policy has brought to inflation, which is rapidly slipping out of control. But, yes, the spring elections aren’t helping.”

“Maybe we should hire you instead of the pathetic excuse for a financial journalist that we have at the  _ Prophet _ ,” she jokes. There’s a short moment of pause, before they look at each other and suddenly start laughing together.

He gets up to join her by the window; there’s less tension in his shoulders, now, and an elegance to his step she can’t help but notice.

“Somehow, I doubt that’s what most people want to hear.”

“You know, some of us still believe in integrity, and truth.”

“Mh, yes, but that’s not always what you publish, is it?”

She opens her mouth to reply, then looks down in silence. His fingers curl into a fist.

“I’m sorry, I- shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me.”

Ginny shakes her head, just so. “There’s nothing to forgive, you’re right. Damn you, I wish you weren’t, but you’re right.” She gives him a weak smile. “Me, I always tell the truth. There’s nothing much to hide, in sports journalism.”

“I read you, you know? Your articles. Quite witty, engaging, well-researched. You’re very good.”

She smiles again, with some pride; he smiles back.

“I’m sure it’s all going to be over soon,” he tells her, raising a tentative hand to touch her elbow, before dropping it again.

She wishes he hadn’t.

 

Two hours later, it’s still raining when they step outside the restaurant; colder still.

“So,” she says, tasting the rainwater, a somber feeling in her gut. “Goodbye, Malfoy.”

“Draco, please.”

She pauses; extends her hand, saying “Draco. It’s Ginny, then.”

He takes her hand, repeating her name. Her skin looks almost translucent, in the rain; her hair has darkened, and a few strands are sticking to her jaw.

Pearls of water have gathered on his eyelashes; her body seems to lean into his; she drops his hand.

“Goodbye,” she says again, taking a step back, and he doesn’t know if he’s imagined the tightness in her voice before she Disapparates.

  
  


Ginny hears Harry Apparate with a  _ pop! _ in the hall.

“Did that wake Lily up?” he asks, coming into the kitchen.

“No, she went to bed hours ago.”

He sits down on a chair, letting out an exhausted sound. Droplets of rainwater collect at the hem of the coat he’s still wearing.

“Good evening to you,” Ginny welcomes him.

Harry shakes his head, bringing his hands to his face under his glasses. He speaks through his fingers.

“Not a good day.”

Ginny leans backwards into the counter, waiting for him to continue; his face looks ashen, paler than his hands.

“There’s been… an accident, involving a Muggle. Ginny, I don’t know how we’re gonna fix this, damn, it’s the worst time, with the campaign…” She knows the tiredness in his voice from the war: it lingers, raspy and low, painful in his throat. She braces herself against it, tightening her grip on the counter. “A wizard, named Anderson, he’s in custody now, performed a charm in front of a Muggle, panicked, tried to shut him up with another spell. I think he tried to make him stop talking and forget at the same time. Now this Muggle, we don’t know his name yet, he’s physically incapable of talking because his tongue is growing out, but something is going on with his head as well which he can’t communicate and we don’t understand. He’s at St. Mungo’s now, but all the Healers seem to be able to do is counteract the symptoms, as they can’t reverse or stop the spell completely. I just got back from there, it’s a mess.”

“Shit,” she offers, sitting down at the table and taking his hand. It’s cold, still, a bit wet; touching him does not stop her stomach from sinking, it doesn’t protect her from the old, familiar fear running down her spine. The image of the death omen comes to her momentarily, the seven faceless figures staring at her. “Are you sure this isn’t related to the Wizard Supremacy Movement? What did this Anderson say?”

He shrugs, caressing her hand with his thumb. “Nothing relevant. We already interrogated him with Veritaserum but he seems to know nothing, apart from the fact that he was drunk at the time.”

Ginny gasps. “Harry, you authorised illegal potion administration to a suspect?”

“This is much bigger than bending a few rules to sort a mess. We’re already tracking Muggle news to find out who went missing in the middle of London tonight, but personally I think we should contact their police force through the Prime Minister.”

“Oh, I can imagine how popular that suggestion was.”

Harry almost smiles, a fraction of a lip curl. “The idea is that this can be fixed by magic, and nobody will notice. We don’t know that. They have no clue how to deal with Muggle technology, and the Muggle Observer Department is seriously struggling with the latest tech. They have ways of communicating very quickly, they’re going to notice this man is missing if they haven’t already.”

She wishes she still had it in her - the thing at her hips which called her to him in the past, stronger than any fight they’d had, the animal thing which longed for his arms and his nose in her neck, the animal thing which understood warmth and comfort more than any part of her. In the past, not too many years ago at all, she would’ve gone to him, sat on his lap, would’ve removed his glasses and massaged his scalp with her fingers, gently, lovingly; would’ve kissed him, held him.

“You should get out of those damp clothes,” she says instead, watching as rivulets of water gather from the ends of his hair, black and glossy with rain, then travel down his temple to his cheekbone.

“Yes,” he replies, looking so utterly exhausted. His lips have a touch of purple to them.

“Let’s get to the fireplace,” she tells him, and she really doesn’t have it in her anymore, not tonight.

  
  


Teddy’s flying motorcycle is parked on the lawn of the Burrow, its chrome-plated frame glistening in the sun; Lily’s hand disentangles from her gentle hold and she runs to the door, yelling “Teddy! Teddy’s here!”

He opens the door, already smiling, and Lily jumps into his arms - all giddy, a tender and playful Lily, only existing as far as Teddy can see her.

They come inside, and Ginny kisses her mum’s cheek before sitting next to her on the sofa. Molly seems happy, or something like happy, to see Lily play with Teddy on the armchair opposite them.

Ginny sees Remus in the gentle way Teddy moves his hands, adjusting Lily’s cardigan, her hair tie - Lily lets him, as she always does, pliant as she never is with her mother; but then Teddy is always so brilliant - Ginny always seems to glimpse Sirius in his shoulders, and his smile, yet she shakes herself, thinking that it’s Tonks she’s seeing, even when Teddy laughs his barking laugh.

She gets up from the sofa, careful not to wake her mum from the dreamlike state she seems to have fallen into. On her way to the kitchen, she keeps the family clock in the corner of her vision, the hand bearing Fred’s name motionless and dusty, still signaling “mortal peril.”

“Ah, Ginny!” her father greets her when she walks into the room, sunny and warm; her mum’s presence fills every part of it, every tile and every tool as if waiting for her to spring in, a cookbook floating just behind her.

“I was just going to feed the chicken.”

She smiles, taking a bag of feed. “Let me help you.”

A hen with black and white feathers pecks at her feet, already stained with yellow-brown dust, while she tells her father about the new plans for Christmas.

“I know what you think of Malfoys, dad, but Albus and Scorpius are quite attached to one another already, and,” she licks her lips, looking out to the gold and green field going towards the hill, so achingly familiar she doesn’t know if it is its beauty hitting her, or something else deeply rooted inside her. “I’ve met Malfoy recently. Draco Malfoy, I mean.” She opens and closes her mouth, words failing to reach her tongue. “He’s a kind man,” she tells him, hoping it is enough, unsure of what  it is she wants him to understand.

Arthur is silent for a long time, pacing through the garden and spreading the feed among the chicken. She gets a sense that there's something meaningful in this, for him, the manual work, the feeling of being needed, walking on his land, this peaceful corner of the world.

“If it’s best for the children,” he says at last, watching the birds eat.

  
  


Her earrings make a little thumping noise against her dresser when she takes them off. They're the fashionable kind, in the shape of a spiral wrapping around a drop of jade; a gift from Bill and Fleur, last Christmas.  _ Has it really been an year? _ , she thinks, sliding her dress over her hips. It seems like yesterday she was going through the same motions, switching out the summer clothes in the wardrobes for the winter, shivering in her coat on the street. And yet; and yet, the image of Albus, absent, fills her head.

Ginny sighs, pulling the bobby pins out of her hair. She massages her scalp, closing her eyes to dwell on the sensation - that peculiar point in which the dull pain becomes a sort of pleasure, as her fingertips trace gentle circles on the nape of her neck.

Opening her eyes, she sees Harry in the mirror, looking at her from the door.

“You’re so beautiful,” he starts, when she turns to look at him; his mouth hangs open a little. “You look like…”

His voice sounds soft; she’s frozen in place, muscles clenched, heart racing.

_ Come to me _ , she’s begging silently with every part of her body - eyes, limbs, belly, knees, everything calling to him, despite herself, despite every resentful promise she’d made in her heart, despite every moment of bitterness,  _ come here, do something, come _ —

He seems to change his mind, muttering something about a Muggle reference. He scratches his chest, right in the middle - a lazy, unthinking gesture, which, a million years ago, she might’ve found enticing for the exact same carelessness she despises now - then he asks, “What’s for dinner?”

She doesn’t move; she can’t find the words.

_ Of course. _

She hates herself, for hoping, and him, for everything, with blind fury.

“We’ve got leftovers from yesterday,” she answers, mechanically, after a beat.

He nods, “Oh, yes. I’d forgot about those,” then walks away, leaving her there in the half-lit room, standing in her dress still pooled at her feet, her hair undone.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I owe many, many thanks to my friends who have read this in advance in bits and bobs during these past months, and particularly Sofia, Gaia, Dani and Tells, who's been the very best at knocking doubt into me and helping me. You rock and I love you.


End file.
